Event Resources

Carrying that weight

Tuesday 09-12-2014 - 17:52

At the beginning of this academic year, Columbia University senior Emma Sulkowicz began carrying a mattress from her university halls with her on campus every day for as long as she and her rapist both attend Columbia.

This powerful performance art project has since inspired countless protests and demonstrations on university campuses around the country and around the world.

On 29 October, students at more than 140 schools in more than five countries took part in the Carry That Weight Day of Action to show support for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

The Carry That Weight movement is about making colleges safer for all students everywhere - in the US, the UK, and around the world. This movement is not just about Columbia’s rape problem nor is it about sexual and domestic violence at colleges just in America. Rape happens everywhere and people of all genders, races, classes, and other identities can all experience sexual and domestic violence.

Join us and actively support survivors. Join us and help end sexual and domestic violence on your campus.

Carrying the weight together means working to create cultural change in campus communities to end sexual and domestic violence and support survivors. It means pressuring our institutions to take responsibility to help create this change and to hold perpetrators of violence accountable. It means continuing to fight until every school steps up to help carry that weight.

Join us and hold your college accountable to making your institution safer.

This is also not just about what institutions can do. Every single person can do something to help carry that weight. Believe survivors, support survivors, be an active bystander, shut down rape jokes, and talk with your friends and family about sexual and domestic violence. One in five women will experience sexual assault during their time in college. This is unacceptable. We must work together to end sexual and domestic violence in our college communities.